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The American China Development company was a company that aimed to gain railway, mining, and other industrial concessions in China. Led by former Ohio senator and railway lawyer, Calvin Brice ,〔Hunt, Michael H. ''The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and China to 1914''. Columbia University Press, New York, 1983.〕 the company was incorporated in December 1895. Early stockholders included many well-known American businessmen, including Charles Coster of J.P. Morgan & Company, the Carnegie Steel Company, the presidents of the National City Bank of New York, and the Chase National Bank.〔Braisted, William R. “The United States and the American Development Company.” ''The Far Eastern Quarterly'', vol 11, no 2 (1952): 147-165.〕 The company played an important role in American involvement in China and in the Open Door Policy〔Young, Marilyn B. ''The Rhetoric of Empire: American China Policy, 1895-1901''. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1968.〕 during the “battle of concessions”〔Chi, Madeline. “Shanghai-Hangchow-Ningpo Railway Loan: A Case Study of the Rights Recovery Movement.” ''Modern Asian Studies'', vol 7, no 1 (1973): 85-106〕 at the turn of the century. ==Company’s Interest in Chinese Railways== A.W. Bash, of Seattle, was sent to China in the spring of 1896 as an agent for the American China Development Company, arriving with letters of recommendation from the State Department.〔 Bash also represented a group of American businessmen who aimed to build a railway line that would cross China from north to south.〔 By November 1896, Bash and the director general of the Chinese Railway Bureau, Sheng Hsuan-huai, had reached an initial agreement for the construction of a railway line from Lukouchiao to Hankow in the south.〔 However, a formal agreement was not reached and Charles Denby, charge d’affaires for the American China Development Company, urged the Peking authorities to instruct Sheng to quickly agree to a contract. This resulted in the Chinese giving the concession to a Belgian group that was funded by Paris financiers and the Russo-Chinese Bank.〔 The American China Development Company then pursued the right to build a railway from Hankow to Canton. America, unlike Russia, France, Germany, Japan, or England, did not have a political stake in the Chinese economy and had significant experience building railroads, which made the American China Development Company an attractive option.〔 In April 1898, the Chinese minister in Washington and A.W. Bash came to an agreement for a loan in which the American company had to market bonds worth 4,000,000, to oversee the construction of the railroad, and to operate it during the fifty years of the loan period.〔 The concession also allowed the company to operate coal mines nearby.〔 The Hankow-Canton line was the only railway project secured by an American company after 1895,〔 but even this railway line would be lost within seven years.〔 The Hankow-Canton project, however, faced uncertainty, given other foreign powers’ interests in China, especially France and England. As a result, the American China Development Company agreed to share half of their concession for the Hankow-Canton line with the British and Chinese Corporation in February 1899.〔 A New York engineer, William Barclay Parsons, was sent by the American China Development Company to survey the proposed route during the winter of 1898-1899. After evaluating the costs of the railroad, the company determined that their current loan agreement with China would only fund about half of the costs of the railroad construction.〔 The company reached a supplementary agreement with the Chinese Minister in July 1900, which provided the American China Development Company $40, 000, 000 gold bonds from the Chinese government.〔(“Canton-Hankow Railway,” The New York Times, July 14, 1902 )〕 However, the supplemental agreement reached between the American China Development Company and the Chinese government made no mention of the earlier affiliation between the American China Development Company and the British and Chinese Corporation.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「American China Development Company」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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